Jeffrey Quick's Blog

Posted by: jeffrey smith
Posted on: July 13, 2007 01:28 PM

Not to mention another point: who gets to decide when there are enough lawyers (or nurses or music librarians)? His idea won't keep law students from elsewhere from setting up practice in WI, especially if they're from WI to start with.

There is one agency that could put a limit on the number of lawyers--the state bar, by raising the passing score on bar exams. I doubt they'd be in a hurry to do that, however.

Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: July 14, 2007 07:14 AM

I dunno...if there really were too many lawyers, they could use entry restrictions to keep pay up. Not that that would be ethical, but tell that to the AMA.

I read the paper last night, and evidently this passed the Republican House (as part of the budget bill) but is given no chance in the Senate or with Gov. Doyle. I breakfasted with an expert in labor law yesterday, and she claimed that UW's law school is resource starved anyway, and does a great job in spite of it. The paper (and I was reading the State Journal, not the "progressive" paper) was full of hand-wringing about "economically disadvantaged" students not being able to get a legal education. This place is pinker than anywhere in Ohio, even Oberlin.

Posted by: jeffrey smith
Posted on: July 14, 2007 10:30 PM

Good God, Miss Molly! I shiver to think what they would do when faced with what's going on Florida right now--viz., the legislature, a month or so ago, enacted a complicated scheme to lower property taxes. How much lower is a bit vague. I think my property tax bill will go down no more than $50, but we were on the low end of the tax spectrum because my mother bought this place more than twenty years ago. It mandated some rollbacks in tax revenue received by the city and county governments, who of course whined. But they're saving the massive whining for stage 2, which requires approval by the voters because an amendment to the state constitution is involved.
It involves adjusting the homestead exemption and repealing the Save Our Homes cap that was passes as an amendment roughly twenty years ago. At present, once you've lived in your home (homestead property only), the appraisal value for tax purposes can go up no more than 3 percent a year. This means my house has a taxed value of roughly 70k, and my next door neighbor, who bought their unit a year ago--said unit being almost completely identical to ours (okay, they've got new stuff in the kitchen and new rugs, and we don't)--pay taxes based on a market value of roughly 230k difference. This means they pay four times as much in property tax as we do for the identical home. (A difference of 3000 dollars a year). This also means that if I was sell this place and move to a condo with roughly similar market value, I would pay 3000 dollars more a year in property, which is a big incentive not to move.) The basic homestead exemption is a one size fits all--25k. Commercial and rental property, and homes that are not used as the primary residence, don't get the exemption, of course. Nor, I think, do they get the Save Our Homes break, which was designed mostly to keep people from being taxed out of their homes. So they just get taxed at market value, and as it goes up, their taxes go up. The proposed amendment will phase out Save Our Homes and phase out the 25k for everybody homestead exemption. Instead, the first 300k of appraised value will receive a 75% exemption (in other words, if your home is appraised at 300k, you would have 225K exempted and pay on a value of 75k). A smaller percentage (25%, but I'm not sure) would be exempted for any market value above the 300k. (So if your home was appraised at 400k, you would pay based on a value of 150k, with an exemption of 250k--225k for the first 300, and 25k for the next 100k.) There is no upper limit to this: on a ten million dollar home, 25% of 9,700,000 plus the first 225k would be exempted. As long as it was homestead property. And there really are some ten million dollar homes around here, just not on my block:) People would get to keep the Save Our Homes exemption instead of this new one for their current home, if that works better for them, but once they choose the new scheme, or once they sell it, Save Our Homes goes out the door forever. And while it's generally better for most family homes (but, if I've done the math right, not for us--so we would keep the Save Our Homes exemption), it does nothing for commercial and rental property and for snowbirds who keep a winter home here. And for any residence that doesn't opt to keep the Save Our Homes exemption, the rise in market value would not be capped anymore--but the exemption would simply be raised in proportion to the new appraised value.)
And this needs to be approved by the voters in January of next year (same day as the presidential primary, apparently) by a sixty percent margin. The city and county governments have started to raise a ruckus, of course, claiming that they'll have to cut too many services, etc. etc. And one local mayor has filed a suit to throw the amendment off the ballot (major claim: it's too complicated for people to understand and knowledgeably vote on. Probably a valid criticism, but that never stopped anyone from voting before now) and then immediately went on vacaction to New York City. The mayor of Miami Dade County is being a little less blatant--he's against it (supposedly) because it does nothing for businesses, rentals, etc. That is very true, although somehow I think that's not his main motivation....
Meanwhile, because of the negative effects the property tax imbroglio has had on the real estate market here, the realtors and tha banks are going to support it enthusiastically. I'm not the only one who stopped looking when I realized how much my tax bill would go up if I moved.